Power management techniques are very important for computers, especially for portable computers. Since an operating period can be extended by reducing power consumption, various power management techniques have been developed. As a basic data for the development of the power management technique, the power consumed by a computer, or by components of a computer, must be measured. For this measurement, Intel Corp. has developed a power consumption measurement tool called the Intel Power Analyst* (* indicates that the term may be a trademark of the respective owner). This tool can display in real time the power consumed by each sub-system, such as a CPU, a memory component or a hard disk. Benchmarks for battery operation, such as SYSmark32* for Battery Life* (product of BAPCo) or BatteryMark* (product of Ziff-Davis Benchmark Operation), can display only the operating time for a battery.
While there are some conventional products that can measure the power consumed by the components of a computer and by an entire system, they cannot clearly delineate for development engineers the relationship between the power consumption and a signal, such as a STPCLK# (# indicates low active) that is a kind of interrupt signal to a Pentium* processor (a trademark of Intel Corp.), that is associated with the power consumption of a CPU or that of an entire system. If this relationship is clear, the technique for controlling the signal to reduce the power consumption can be more easily developed.
It is, therefore, one object of the present invention to obtain a clear relationship between the power consumption and a signal (hereinafter referred to as a power control signal), such as a STPCLK#, that is associated with the power consumption by a CPU or by an entire system.
It is another object of the present invention to measure and record the power control signal and the power consumption in order to obtain a clear relationship between the power control signal and the power consumption.